Evaluation
by ncfan
Summary: Was Uchiha Sasuke insane? The answer, Ibiki knew, was yes.


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_Evaluation_

_Disclaimer: I own nothing._

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The boy had been subjected to test after test, and still they weren't satisfied. Personally, Ibiki thought the boy should have been sent to him straight off; he could have told them what they wanted to know after thirty seconds with the brat. Now, he was secondhand and wary.

"_Remember, Morino-san," the Hokage urged him. "Uchiha Sasuke is being sent to you for a psychological evaluation. _Not_ for a torture session._"

Ibiki didn't see much of a difference.

The old man was too soft; if Ibiki had his way, all Academy students would be sent to him to at least get the softness beaten out of them and give them a taste of what _real_ torture was like, and to weed out the weak ones, the ones that would never make it in the real world.

But no.

And now the result was staring him in the face, in the form of the Uchiha brat who was being sent to state psychologist after state psychologist, because he hadn't been prepared for what his traitor brother would do to him.

The brat now knew far more than Ibiki would have cared for him to know. He was thoroughly drugged up on anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, and myriad toxic medications, and it showed in his sluggish movements and reflexes, but he was still disturbingly aware.

He was quiet and observant, watching Ibiki's every twitch like he expected to be pounced upon at any moment; that could have been written off to knowledge of his reputation, but Ibiki got the impression that the kid honestly expected him to attack him.

And it was more than that. Sasuke's…ahem, _misadventures_…with the other, softer psychologists had left him all too ready for Ibiki's lines of questioning. He knew which questions to avoid, and which ones were a question inside of a question. He knew when evasion was accepted and when it was not. He knew which answers would make the interrogator leave him alone and which ones would make them stick a syringe in his arm or a pill down his throat. Sasuke had been thoroughly coached in what to expect.

Ibiki could have tenderized him a bit to get the real answers out of him, but he didn't need to. The only real difference between a psychological evaluation and a torture session was that there was no intent to harm in the former, and Ibiki could glean much information out of observation of one as he could of the other.

Sasuke was mentally and emotionally unstable. Ibiki had seen soldiers fighting through years of war with eyes less haunted than his. He had seen victims of the Rock's torture specialists less twitchy, and there were ninety-year-old men with shoulders less hunched.

There was an old, withering spirit inside that small, unformed body.

Was Uchiha Sasuke clinically insane?

The answer, Ibiki knew, was yes.

But was that cause enough for him to be taken out of the Academy and committed to an asylum? The answer to that was a far more complicated one.

No shinobi, no true shinobi, was sane by the time they had ten years of experience under their belts. They lost their minds in little ways as blood soaked their souls and war darkened their eyes. They acquired quirks and eccentricities that no one could quite explain or shrug off.

But that did not make them useless. It was the ones who were overtly insane, the ones who posed an imminent threat to their comrades, the ones who could not contain their insanity who were the only ones who deserved to be locked away.

The quietly insane ones made the best warriors. They were less averse to brutality and slaughter; they killed without compunction and smiled their way through battle after battle.

The only difference between Uchiha Sasuke and one of those shinobi was that Sasuke was, biologically, a child.

His insanity could prove to be a boon to himself and to all those around him rather than a blight upon Konoha. Even before the massacre it was clear Sasuke had the makings of a great warrior, and now he had the makings of a truly extraordinary one. He had just been exposed to insanity long before any of his classmates; his insanity did not make him any less fit.

Ibiki's final opinion to the Hokage was that Uchiha Sasuke was still fit to become a shinobi.

He would live to regret that decision.


End file.
